Jan. 31st-That God’s presence would INVADE my faith
(Hebrews 10:32-39)
I’ve heard that faith is like a muscle. The more times I exercise my faith, the stronger my faith becomes. As I have faith in small things, I am being prepared to have faith for larger things down the road. That makes pretty good sense except that it doesn’t.
I’m of the mindset that faith is in fact NOT like a muscle. If faith were like a muscle, we should have seen the salvation of the world by now. We should be experiencing a steady flow of miracles that would render the miraculous to be commonplace. We should have seen every need met, every blessing imparted, every ailment healed. We should have already experienced heaven on earth.
I’m almost 43 years old and I think that I should understand faith by now. I’ve read all the Scriptures and some books about faith. I understand what faith IS, but I don’t understand HOW to have faith My own experiences keep getting in my way of being able to have any kind of working formula for faith. Do I lack some epiphany that will open the world of faith up to me? I have treated faith like a muscle and I’ve believed really hard about some things (I flexed my faith muscle) but my muscle seems to have let me down a lot.
I really WANT to have faith that moves mountains but unless God puts it in me…I’m stuck. That bothers me. I have a real fear and dread about leading a church that doesn’t get to accomplish the whole of God’s will due lack of faith. That is a lack of faith that I in no way want. I don’t want that common problem that I see in churches…having faith in faith. I want to be a man that has faith in the Giver of faith.
This writing is not meant to discourage nor is it an admission that I doubt God’s power to do anything…just the opposite. In fact, I find myself starting to believe in a miracle for our church that I won’t share because the size of the miracle is bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced. I just struggle with tapping into faith with any understanding of it. Many years ago I resigned myself to one prayer that I pray more than any other prayer: “Lord, give me more faith.” I think it’s being answered but don’t ask me what that looks like just yet…maybe another 43 years?
"Holy Spirit, I long for our faith to be much more than a set of rules and a building to go to on Sundays. I pray that You would begin to rock my faith off the safe zone I've placed it in. Set it on fire and cause me to have faith in things I've never considered."
No comments:
Post a Comment